Freeh report on Penn State

I'm not shocked, just even more saddened that these adults, placed in a position of power, could so callously disregard the welfare of a child in order to save the face of what? A ******* football program?????

Burn, Paterno.

Sandusky - you'll get yours soon.

The rest of you involved? You may walk free, but you'd best be keeping your head on a swivel.

Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters, according to a scathing internal report issued Thursday on the scandal."Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," said former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports' biggest scandals. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized."

After an eight-month investigation, Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that the Hall of Fame coach, President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse."Paterno "was an integral part of this active decision to conceal" and his firing was justified, Freeh said at a news conference. He called the officials' disregard for child victims "callous and shocking."Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys. The scandal led to the ouster of Paterno and Spanier. Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on charges accusing them of lying to a grand jury and failing to report abuse. They have pleaded not guilty.Asked whether the officials' actions amounted to a crime such as conspiracy or obstruction, Freeh said that would be up to a grand jury.School leaders "empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access" to campus and to affiliate with the football program, the report said. The access, the report states, "provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims."Freeh said officials had opportunities in 1998 and 2001 to step in.Sexual abuse might have been prevented if university officials had banned Sandusky from bringing children onto campus after a 1998 inquiry, the report said. Despite their knowledge of the police probe into Sandusky showering with a boy in a football locker room, Spanier, Paterno, Curley and Schultz took no action to limit his access to campus, the report said.The May 1998 complaint by a woman whose son came home with wet hair after showering with Sandusky didn't result in charges at the time. The report says Schultz was worried the matter could be opening "Pandora's box."Then, in 2001, after a member of Paterno's staff saw Sandusky in a campus shower with a boy, officials did bar him from bringing children to campus and decided not to report him to child welfare authorities."There's more red flags here than you could count over a long period of time," Freeh said.In a statement, Paterno's family said the longtime coach made mistakes that he acknowledged but "never interfered with any investigation" and was fooled by Sandusky."The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events," the statement said. "If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity would not have factored into his actions."Defense lawyer Caroline Roberto, who represents Curley, was reading the report and had no immediate comment, according to a spokeswoman. Messages were left for lawyers for Spanier and Schultz.Trustee Anthony Lubrano, a critic of the board's dismissal of Paterno in November, said the board was still formulating a response.Freeh said Sandusky's conduct was in part a result of the school's lack of transparency, which stemmed from a "failure of governance" on the part of officials and the board of trustees. He said the collective inaction and mindset at the top of the university trickled all the way down to a school janitor who was afraid for his job and opted to not report seeing sex abuse in a school locker room in 2000.The report also singled out the revered Penn State football program - one built on the motto "success with honor" - for criticism. It says Paterno and university leaders allowed Sandusky to retire in 1999, "not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the Penn State football legacy, with future `visibility' at Penn State'," allowing him to groom victims.Investigators, however, found no evidence linking his $168,000 retirement package to the 1998 police investigation. Freeh called the payout unprecedented but said there was no evidence it was an attempt to buy Sandusky's silence.Sandusky's trial last month included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys, sometimes on campus, and included testimony that showed he used his prestige as a university celebrity to manipulate the children.By contrast, Freeh's team focused on Penn State and what its employees did - or did not do - to protect children.More than 430 current or former school employees were interviewed since November, including nearly everyone associated with the football program under Paterno. The Hall of Fame coach died of lung cancer in January at age 85, without telling Freeh's team his account of what happened.Some of the report's most damning evidence against Paterno consists of handwritten notes and emails that portray him as being involved with a decision by the officials not to tell child welfare authorities about the 2001 encounter.Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Child Welfare. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind about the plan "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe."Spanier concurred but noted "the only downside for us is if the message isn't (heard) and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it."The emails also show Paterno closely followed the 1998 allegation.Michael Boni, a lawyer for a boy known as Victim 1, called the report a "serious indictment against Penn State's culture and environment of protecting at all costs the football program."He added: "Nothing is shocking anymore in this case ... but the fact that the highest levels of the school made a conscious decision to cover up what Sandusky had done, it comes close. It is shocking."With the report now complete, the NCAA said Penn State now must address four key questions concerning "institutional control and ethics policies," as outlined in a letter sent to the school last fall."Penn State's response to the letter will inform our next steps, including whether or not to take further action," said Bob Williams, the NCAA's vice president of communications. "We expect Penn State's continued cooperation in our examination of these issues."The U.S. Department of Education is examining whether the school violated the Clery Act, which requires reporting of certain crimes on campus, including ones of a sexual nature. The report said Penn State's "awareness and interest" in Clery Act compliance was "significantly lacking."Only one form used to report such crimes was completed on campus from 2007 through 2011, according to the Freeh findings. And no record exists of Paterno, Curley or assistant coach Mike McQueary reporting that McQueary saw Sandusky in a shower with a boy in 2001, as they would be obligated to do under the Clery Act.As of last November, Penn State's policies for Clery compliance were still in draft form and had not been implemented, the report found.U.S. Department of Education said it was still examining whether Penn State violated the Clery Act, but declined to comment on Freeh's report.Mary Krupa, an 18-year-old Penn State freshman who grew up in State College, said the conclusion that the school's highest officials were derelict in protecting children didn't shake her love of the town or the school."The actions of five or six people don't reflect on the hundreds of thousands" of students and faculty who make up the Penn State community, she said while walking through the student union building on campus.Freeh said he regretted the damage the findings would do to Paterno's "terrific legacy" but there was no attempt to pin the blame on the late coach."What my report says is what the evidence and the facts show," he said.Christian Beveridge, a masonry worker who grew up near Penn State, said the findings will ruin Paterno's legacy but not the closeness that people in town and fans feel for him."He built this town," said Beveridge, 40, resting in the shade on campus during a break. "All of his victories, he'll be remembered by everyone in town for a long time, but there will be that hesitation."

My favorite part of the story was after JoePope eagerly got cancer and died, his family thanked all the money coming in and told people to send it to JoePope's favorite charity, the Special Olympics because it would honor him so much. They were so angry at the boys he'd helped rape, that they didn't want the money going to charities who helped little victims

By Spencer Hall - Featured ContributorNCAA president Mark Emmert's decision to absorb power accomplished nothing, but let's all marvel at the wreckage he's left of Penn State football anyway.Follow @sbnation on Twitter, and LikeSBNation.com on Facebook.Jul 23, 2012 - It's amazing how taking down a statue can undo so much. The minute that despised statue of Joe Paterno came down, the event unspooled like the fishing line off a coil. Men who were once children suddenly became unraped; the veil of distance between them and the world fell, and they instantly became fitter, happier men.
Lawsuits evaporated in the drawers of legal firms. Columns excoriating Penn State as a feckless den of toadying football cultists disintegrated, leaving blank pixels and empty news columns in their place.
This happened. It had to happen. Certainly people would not do things for hollow, cynical reasons having to do more with the cheap jousting of the political living than the relevant dead.

Amy K. Nelson on the Penn State punishments.​

Take the NCAA making its way into the Penn State case. The NCAA has purview here, and no one should dispute that. Being a member institution, Penn State leans on the NCAA for one thing: the stamp of amateurism. If the NCAA did not exist, Penn State would not have a ready intermediary between those pointing out that they're running a business under the guise of a non-profit and the money coming from said non-profit. Like someone waving a bottle of vermouth with the cap on over a martini, it's the gesture that makes this a cocktail, and not just a grizzled drunk sipping straight vodka from an elegant glass.
It makes sense for the NCAA to protect its product. It also makes sense of the coldest kind for Mark Emmert, head of the organization, to take a defenseless Penn State, prop it up on stage, and then take a few delighted whacks at its staggering corpse with the heaviest hammer imaginable. The key is not killing the victim, the Penn State football program. It will now be toured through every stage of the redemption cycle, and eventually brought forth as a model citizen at the appropriate date by a fully empowered oversight authority -- one that can now, with the consent of its backers, make bigger, more immediate show trials of its thoroughly fixed bouts.
Related: Coverage Of Penn State's Sanctions
The NCAA can do this because they've been given the worst kind of permission. In response to a petty tyrant at the center of his own cult of personality protecting a pedophile, the organization will simply insert another petty tyranny. They will do this even though there is no fixing the unfixable, or predicting the unthinkable.
This needs to be repeated: for everyone suggesting that football was at the core of this, for everyone suggesting for an instant that something could have predicted this, and that a precedent could be set, you literally do not understand humanity or the rare horror of something truly evil. People will sell themselves to authorities far cheaper and less impressive than a corrupt, morally bankrupt football legend. Subordinates cover for regional managers at car rental places for worse, and do so for $50,000 a year without benefits.
Give someone three cents worth of power and they will ask for an advance of an entire dollar. Often, they get far more than that in return even without asking, and in the cases of legitimate evil, simply stand by the wayside and let it happen.
What would I have the NCAA do here? Absolutely ****-nothing. After all, it's what they do most of the time. Ideally, I'd like them to evaporate overnight, and simply cease to exist. That will not happen, so I would instead like them to admit what they're doing: stabbing a corpse, and then demanding some public recognition of their ersatz bravery. I would like them to admit they are seizing a horrific moment in time to advance their own fartgassy agenda, and then demanding credit for it. They will burn an effigy after the courts have already done the hard work of humanity.
They will not do any of this. The NCAA's punishments serve no purpose, solve no problems, and prevent nothing. They represent an organization desperate for relevance seizing the moment to poach some kind of sinister power-up from this moment. They will -- and did -- suggest the "children" are the reason for the reach, and do so without openly guffawing or flinching from the shame a normal, moral person would feel at that moment. They will use the word "culture" to defend what they do, mostly because using that word allows you to make up whatever you like without evidence, justification, or data.
Most importantly, they will give everyone the important reminder that if you know a pedophile, you should probably alert the police and stop evil and stuff. They will then nuke Penn State football and people who had nothing to do with this off the map. Congratulations, albeit theatrically grim ones, will be shared between principals in the case.
Having solved one of the most fundamental flaws in humanity in a morning's work, Mark Emmert will then leave the stage, and go back to a giant building in Indianapolis paid for by unpaid athletes and collect his massive salary. He may have lunch, and then perhaps invent an appropriately colored ribbon or bracelet for the occasion. It would be a hollow gesture, but a fitting conclusion. Hollow people love hollow gestures.

At least the $60mil is slated to go toward child sex abuse awareness programs. The rest is just for show.​

NCAA had to bring the hammer but this doesn't help those kids one bit. I would love to see Sandusky caged in the GP area of prison, that would be justice!

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I agree about where Sandusky should be housed. My understanding is that pedophiles aren't treated very kindly in prison.

The $60mil fine will help abused kids provided it goes where stated & isn't consumed by "administrative" costs.

As for the actual victims .... only counseling will help them through this. That doesn't mean I don't want accountability from those responsible - I do & hope that these victims sue the crap out of these pricks in civil court. But no amount of punishment for the offenders will eliminate the scars caused by the abuse. Only time & work can do that.